


So You Think You Have Ghosts?

by possible_magic_occuring



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 18:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7944925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possible_magic_occuring/pseuds/possible_magic_occuring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's understandable that they'd get called to a place such as the school up in Westchester. It's old, spooky and full of easily frightened children. The perfect place for a haunting.<br/>But being called to Stark tower? In the middle of Manhattan? To hunt a ghost? Likely story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So You Think You Have Ghosts?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my wonderful beta [musicandteddybears](http://musicandteddybears.tumblr.com/)!

Clint had always said that his favourite job in all the time that he had worked with Bucky had to be the Westchester Job.

The school was the perfect place for a haunting.

Big, old, spooky mansion? Check.

Groups of easily scared children? Check.

One very pissed off dead teacher? Check.

It wasn’t even a hard job.

The bald, supposedly all-knowing professor in the wheel chair had told them about how one of the teachers, Jean, had died in a car crash not too long ago, and boom. They had an identity for their malevolent spirit.

After that it was so easy Clint could actually cry. Even their camera man Steve said that they could have done the job in their sleep. But needs came to must, so they went hunting for new material for the second season of their TV show and the haunted pizzeria they’d visited just wasn’t going to cut it.

And so what if they prolonged helping Jean so that they had enough filming for a forty-five minute show, it wasn’t a crime to want to make good TV.

Having tracked her through the school using the ‘specialist’ equipment they’d bought off the internet for a hundred bucks, they found her on the widows walk on the roof of the building.  
  
Their equipment squealed as it registered the fluctuation in temperature and their clothing was whipping backwards in the storm that Jean appeared to be creating.

The sky had darkened around the building and the clouds writhed violently, lightning sparking from them. But there was no rain, only a gale force wind that carried the sound of a woman screaming and the smell of burning tyres.

After a brief conversation where they covered the fact that – yes – she really was dead and – no – she couldn't stay at the school, it was scaring the children, she agreed to move on.

And more often than not it was that easy to fix a haunting. Over the years Clint had found that spirits really only stayed in this plane of existence for three reasons: they didn't know they were dead; they had un-finished business or they just wanted to stir shit up.

And that was the problem with ghosts, they _really_ liked to stir shit up. It annoyed Clint to no end.

And so here they were now, sitting at the table of their apartment in Bed-Stuy, eating bacon and discussing the latest season.

“I still think the pizzeria could have had some good stuff,” Clint argued around his mouthful of food.

Bucky rolled his eyes and turned to face Clint, “There was nothing exciting about the pizzeria, you just like pizza.”

“So? Everyone loves pizza. Even Lucky.”

The dog looked over to them at the sound of his name, he padded across the floor until his head rested on top of Clint’s sweat-pant clad thigh. He stared at him with wide eyes, woofing softly until Clint gave him a rasher of bacon, then licked the grease off the tip of Clint’s fingers.

“I swear that dog eats better than we do,” Bucky muttered under his breath as he moved back to the front of the stove and flipped over the bacon that sat in the bottom of the pan.

The kitchen was almost silent, just the faint sounds of the bacon sizzling in the pan and the gurgle of the coffee machine filling the space that Bucky and Clint had left after their brief conversation.

Then the phone rang.

It rattled in its holder on the wall, a proper ring being emitted from it instead of the electronic crap that most phones nowadays rang with.

“Clint get the phone.” Bucky said from the stove.

“Hell no, I’m stuck in my seat,” Clint replied, pulling Lucky up onto his lap at the kitchen table so that he couldn’t move. “I’ve been trapped by a ferocious beast."

The dog woofed softly at Bucky from over Clint’s shoulder, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.

“Wow, very mature.” Bucky said once again rolling his eyes but he smiled too, it was good to know that he wasn’t angry. Angry Bucky was scarier than any spirit they had ever faced.

Bucky approached the wall, picking his way around the random bits of equipment strewn across the floor.

“It’s a Manhattan number anyway, you’re not educated enough to answer it.” Bucky said cheekily.

“Well fuck you too.”

Bucky grinned and flashed Clint the ‘I love you’ sign as he plucked the phone off its stand and put it to his ear, brushing away the strands of hair that had fallen loose from the knot on the back of his head.

“Hello?” he said uncertainly. With filming more or less over for the second season, they really weren’t expecting a lot of calls.

“Hi, is this James Barnes?” a professional female voice on the end of the phone asked.

“Yeah, speaking.” He looked at Clint with a raised eye brow.

 _Who is it?_ Clint mouthed silently from across the room and Bucky shrugged in response. Even Lucky watched as Bucky held the phone to his ear, twirling the cord around his finger. He waited another thirty seconds for the woman to speak again.

“Can I help you?” he finally asked, impatience seeping into his tone.

“I’m sorry about that, I had to deal with something.” the woman said. “My name is Pepper Potts, I’m calling on behalf of Tony Stark. He requires your services.”

Clint spat out his coffee in shock, spluttering slightly as he looked at Bucky. Shoving Lucky off his lap, he moved deftly across the floor towards Bucky and grabbed the receiver from his hands.

“I’m sorry, but did you just insinuate that Tony Stark has a ghost problem?” Clint asked incredulously, he stepped back as Bucky came towards him, clearly with the intention of taking back the phone.

“Yes, I believe he has been ‘messing with the planes of existence’, or at least that’s what he said.” Clint could almost see the air quotes that obviously came along with that sentence.

“I’m assuming that this is all happening at Stark Tower?” Clint asked as he backed further away from Bucky.

“Indeed it is” Pepper replied “Are you able to stop by and have a look, it might not be paranormal but I’m not going to put it past Tony.”

“We’ll drop by in about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Bucky has to do his hair.” Clint said conspiratorially as Bucky finally grabbed the phone.

Clint went to grab it again but Bucky stepped to the side out of his reach, he chuckled as Clint reached for the phone again.

“Dammit Bucky give me the phone back.” Clint whispered, laughing slightly at the sight of them both tangled up in the phones cord.

Pepper laughed on the other end of the phone, “Great I’ll see you then.”

“Bye!” Clint said somewhere near the correct end of the phone.

Bucky grabbed him by the waist and flipped them both so that Clint was backed up against the wall, the phone wire popped out of its position on the phone cradle as the wire finally reached its stretching limit.

“Shit, now we need a new phone.” Clint muttered, staring at Bucky’s lips that were only inches from his own.

“Never mind,” Bucky said placing a soft kiss on Clint’s lips. “I’m fairly certain this phone is older than both of us combined.” He finished the sentence with a harder kiss, biting down on Clint’s lower lip in a way that spoke of years of experience.

They stood like that for a while, kissing against the wall like when they were teenagers again, newly in love and dreaming of a future together

They finally broke apart when the mobile on the table rang shrilly.

Grumbling under his breath, Clint put two hands against Bucky’s chest and pushed him away, moving towards the table to answer the call.

Bucky waved over his shoulder as he walked towards the bathroom. The shower started up more of less straight away.

“Hello?” Clint said irritably, bracing one arm against the table and leaning over that morning’s paper, the headline screaming something about unnatural weather and coldest winter in the past century.

“Barton?” Steve said on the other end of the line. “Why didn’t you pick up the landline?”

* * *

“So you told Steve to meet us there?” Bucky asked for what was probably the millionth time.

Clint ran his hands over his face, digging his knuckles into the corners of his eyes, scrubbing away the dirt that had collected there.

“Yes, just as I said the last seven times you asked me.” He said, trying not to snap at Bucky. It wasn’t Bucky’s fault they were stuck in the Monday morning traffic heading into Manhattan. They never had had the best of luck especially when it came to cars.

“What on earth could Tony frickin Stark, of all people, have done to need the help of ghost hunters?” Clint mused idly, resting his forehead against the glass of the window as he peered out into the street.

“I don’t even care.” Bucky replied, changing gears expertly as the traffic started to move again “If we get an episode at Stark Tower with Tony Stark himself? Think of the ratings, they’ll have to renew us for a third season.”

Clint huffed a laugh, his breath leaving fog on the glass and momentarily blocking his view of the sidewalk. “Always thinking about the ratings aren’t you Buck?” He gazed through the window of the StarBucks across the street wistfully.

Bucky followed his gaze out the window. "I'm sure there's coffee there."

"I should hope so! Dragging us out of the apartment before nine, the cheek, we should charge them double." Clint said, whipping round in his seat to face Bucky. "It’s not like they can't afford it."

Bucky shook his head smiling fondly, "Just because he's a billionaire doesn't mean we can charge him twice what we would charge someone else. Besides, Charles was a millionaire and we didn't charge him extra."

"Yeah, but Charles isn't a dick."

"And we don't know that Tony is either." Bucky pointed out.

Clint hummed in agreement before turning back to the window. The traffic wasn't moving any quicker and the cold of the glass helped to keep Clint focused, if he drifted off now he'd be no use when they actually got to the tower and if Tony Stark really had fucked things up so spectacularly that he needed help of the paranormal sort, well... Clint would definitely need to be awake for that.

He yawned loudly and his jaw clicked as he moved it from side to side.

"Eughh." Bucky cast a look at Clint, "Do you have to do that now? It's disgusting."

Clint smirked at Bucky, maintaining eye contact as he cracked each finger separately. Bucky flinched after each pop.

"I'm divorcing you," Bucky said finally.

"We’re not even married."

"We’re gonna get married, then I'm gonna divorce you." Bucky amended.

"That suggests that you're going to propose. I could just say no." Clint replied.

"Yeah but you wouldn't." Bucky said. "We've been together since we were sixteen, you don't just say no when you've been together eleven years."

"Damn, has it really been eleven years?"

"Yup, eleven years since you sat next to me in chemistry and essentially trashed my GPA."

Clint put a hand to his chest in fake hurt. He opened his eyes wide, going for the innocent look but landing somewhere between manic and deranged.

In retaliation Bucky turned up the volume of the radio, singing along at the top of his lungs about how 'she telling me this, and telling me that'.

"Oh my God stop!" Clint yelled, hands over his ears in an attempt to block it out.

"She said 'pardon my French' I said 'bonjour Madame'," Bucky sang, eyes glued on the road and looking serious or as serious as he could when he was bobbing his head along to shitty pop songs.

"If you don't stop I'm gonna make us crash, I'm serious. Ninety miles an hour into the back of that van," Clint said gesturing out the window to the FedEx van parked a few metres down the street. "I'd do anything right now to alleviate my pain." he added dramatically, the back of his hand pressed against his forehead, pretending to faint.

The look Bucky gave him said that he was anything but impressed, but he did reach over and turn down the stereo. The sudden change of volume caused Clint’s already messed up ears to buzz due to the loss of sound.

Clint hit the side of his head a few times in an attempt to dispel the buzzing, shaking it from side to side when the hitting didn’t help.

Bucky flapped the hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel at him. “Stop hitting your head. You’ll kill even more brain cells.”

“Your faith in my intelligence is astounding.” Clint grumbled, settling back into his seat as the traffic finally started to clear and they could pick up speed instead of just jolting forward every few minutes.

The music in the car picked back up again as Bucky fiddled with the dials, eventually deciding on a channel that didn’t play a trashy pop song every three minutes. Clint couldn’t decide if the classical music was an improvement or not. He was leaning towards not.

* * *

To say that Clint felt out of place in the lobby of Stark Tower would be a severe understatement.

His beat up converses and battered leather jacket didn’t exactly scream reliable and trustworthy to the woman sat in a grey pant suit behind the front desk, and Bucky’s combat boots made them look like they’d just rolled in off the street ready to start a fight.

And maybe they were if Bucky’s raised voice was anything to go by.

“What do you mean there isn’t a scheduled appointment?” Bucky said somewhere behind Clint, probably to the other woman who had appeared from some entrance that Clint could not find no matter how hard he tried.

And he had tried. Searching the walls for any line that may signify a break from all the shining panelling because _where the hell did that woman come from?_

Bucky yelled something again but at this point Clint just didn’t care, all he cared about was the coffee trolley that he had just seen getting into position on the pavement across from the tower. His mouth watered in anticipation. He turned to Bucky ready to ask if he wanted a coffee, and was instead greeted by Tony Stark because apparently the man had no sense of what personal space was.

“You must be Clint.”

Clint squealed in surprise and jumped about a foot in the air. "What the fuck dude?"  He took a hasty step back and looked at the man properly.

Faded jeans and an old band t-shirt didn't exactly scream billionaire. But Clint thought it was probably the look of superiority in his eyes that really showed who he was. That and his impeccable facial hair.

"Tony." A woman stood next to Bucky who had finally decided to stop yelling. "You're supposed to be begging for their help. Not scaring them away with your poor social skills."

"I wasn't scared" Clint replied sourly. Bucky raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

"I wasn't!"

Clint stuck his tongue out when Bucky raised his eyebrow even higher.

A polite cough brought them back to the conversation.

"So anyway," The woman - Clint presumed it was Pepper - said, "We were hoping you'd be able to come have a look at the lab upstairs, that's where Tony seems to have created the problem."

"But..." Tony started raising a finger and signalling everyone to stop. He paused for a minute.

"But?" Bucky said impatiently.

"But, we need to wait for that delicious mountain of a man that does your filming."

Clint and Bucky barked a laugh.

"We’re supposed to be meeting him outside?" Bucky said, looking to Clint for clarification.

"Yes we are, so we'll wait outside." Clint gestured over his shoulder. Walking backwards towards the door, he grabbed Bucky's sleeve on the way by and dragged him along behind him as he spun on his heel and left through the glass doors.

Outside was just as stressful as inside, cars flying by with their horns blaring and people shoving their way down the sidewalk, all of them obviously part of the minority that walked to work in winter. Clint often wondered whether they had a death wish or if they genuinely enjoyed the walk - maybe they used the sharp chill in the air to wake them up before they went to their boring 9-5 office jobs that offered no satisfaction and maybe sometimes led to a long coming suicide.

Clint pitied them, they would never fully know job satisfaction, they were clearly only doing their jobs for the money. And sometimes even that wasn't enough.

"Clint," Bucky said, the look on his face showed that it wasn't the first time he'd said it. He brushed the stray hair from Clint’s forehead and cradled his cheek with his palm. "Are you alright? You seem a bit out of it." Bucky frowned in concern and felt Clint’s forehead with the back of his hand.

"I'm fine, just a bit dazed, get me a coffee and I'll be fine." Clint said with a smile, taking Bucky's hands off his face and holding them in his own. Bucky only frowned more.

"I'm fine, I promise."

"Err, excuse me?"

A woman stood to the left of them, dressed in business casual and looking far too excited for that time on a Monday morning.

"Yes, what can we do for you?" Bucky said, turning on his charm and flashing the woman a blinding grin.

"You’re James Barnes and Clint Barton aren't you?"

They both nodded in response.

"I'm such a big fan of your show! Are you filming now?" She looked around at the nearby buildings before she spotted Tony and Pepper watching them from inside the glass fronted building. Her eyes widened in realisation.

"That’s Tony Stark!" she cried, pointing through the glass.

"Yes it is." Bucky replied.

"You’re filming at Stark Tower! Who would have thought Tony Stark would have a ghost problem! Are you going to air it? I can't see Steve, is he coming or is this not being filmed?"

"Well I hope it's being filmed," Steve said wryly. "Otherwise I would have gotten out of bed for nothing."

The woman's jaw dropped.

Steve looked to Clint and Bucky worriedly, Bucky just smiled and looped an arm around Clint’s waist.

Steve clicked his fingers in front of the woman’s face a few times before shrugging when he didn’t get a response.

From inside the tower Tony and Pepper watched the exchange.

"How come they're so popular? They hunt ghosts! I do exciting things too!" Tony said, looking to Pepper expecting her to reassure him and stroke his ego.

She rolled her eyes.

"You’re popular too." she said with a sigh. "Just in a different way."

"Yeah, cougars. I get cougars and middle aged men who want to build a shed!" Tony exclaimed.

"I'm sure they want to do more than build a shed."

Tony hummed noncommittally and turned his gaze back outside.

"You know," Tony started, "Apparently they've been together since they were teenagers."

"What, Steve and his fan, or James and Clint?" Pepper said teasingly.

"Hardy ha, you know who I mean." He looked speculatively out the window. Bucky pulled Clint against his side and ruffled his hair. Clint tried to pull away, laughing as Bucky lunged after him. Steve stood watching them with a small smile on his face.

"They’re cute." Pepper said, she'd clearly been watching them out the window as well.

"Yeah they are," Tony agreed with a nod. "Very attractive couple," he said, wiggling his eyebrows at Pepper. She shoved him in the arm and smiled.

"Alright," Bucky said, striding through the doors with Steve and Clint in tow. "Now that we're all here, can we see what you've managed to fuck up?"

Tony spluttered indignantly. "How do you know I fucked it up? Maybe it worked perfectly well and I called you here to gloat."

"You called a pair of TV ghost hunters." Clint pointed out. "You definitely fucked it up."

Tony pouted and crossed his arms. Rolling her eyes, Pepper looked at him. "You did fuck it up," she pointed out.

Tony gasped "Pepper! A lady should not use that kind of language!"

"A lady should use whatever kind of language she wants." Steve said, looking at Tony and crossing his arms, clearly unimpressed by the theatrics.

"Thank you." Pepper said, smirking at Tony when he started to gobble like a turkey. "If you'll follow me than I can show you the lab."

Steve gestured as if to say 'lead the way', and Pepper took off at a brisk trot that was truly impressive in five inch heels. After exchanging glances the cast and crew of So You Think You Have Ghosts? trailed after her.

* * *

 The private elevator was a little bit of a tight fit with five adults and a huge camera, especially when one of those adults was Steve Rogers.

"So Steve," Tony said breaking the silence. "How did you come to be stuck with these two? Surely a talented man such as yourself could be directing in Hollywood."

"That’s very kind Mr. Stark, but I decided Hollywood wasn't for me. Besides I've known Bucky since we were kids, I couldn't just say no when he asked me to film for him." He shot Bucky a sideways glance. "However much I might have wanted to."

"Rude." Clint said. "You love us."

“Less and less each day.” Steve dead-panned.

Clint stuck his tongue out in response.

“Very mature.”

“So can you tell us what you’ve actually done?” Bucky said a minute later, looking towards Tony who didn’t even raise his eyes from his phone.

“I created a device that lets you see into the other planes of existence.” Tony said distractedly.

“You did what?” Bucky asked, for once Clint had stopped talking to openly stare at Tony in shock.

“And you thought that was a good idea why?” Steve asked. The elevator glided to a stop and they all piled out as the doors opened, Pepper leading the group down corridor after corridor until she finally stopped in front of a pair of steel double doors with a key pad at the left side of the door.

Tony stepped forward and typed an eight digit code into the pad. The light above the keys flashed green and Tony grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it towards him.

“Sorry about the mess,” was all he said before disappearing through the door.

“It can’t be that bad surely.” Steve said dubiously, taking the door from Pepper and gesturing for her to follow Tony inside.

“You’d be surprised,” she said, following after Tony into the darkened lab.

The lights flickered on one after the other from the back of the room where Tony stood next to an impressive array of switches.

Clint stopped in his tracks and looked around the lab. “So when you said sorry about the mess, you really meant, thank fuck I didn’t destroy the building.”

Tony shrugged and poked his shoe against the nearest pile of metal, it all crashed to the floor as it finally over-balanced.

Pepper rolled her eyes again. “Right then, I’ll leave you to it gentlemen. Tony, play nice.”

Clint really thought that Pepper was a lot more than Tony Stark deserved, the poor woman would be aged before her time at the rate that Tony was messing up.

Now that Clint had a proper chance to look around, he could see what had happened.

Equipment lay on its side – even the pieces that were fixed to the floor -, tools lay scattered across the floor, and papers stirred in the breeze coming from the air conditioning unit on the wall. It only made a more pitiful sight as the flapped weakly from wherever they had landed in the tangle of desks and what appeared to be a large collection of wrenches.

It all spread out from one point in the middle of the room. What appeared to be a circle on steroids stood on a stand, completely untouched from the carnage that started in the space around it.

Clint waded his way towards it, thankful for once that he had let Bucky put steel toe caps in the ends of his Chucks. As he approached the machine he realised that the space around the machine was completely clear of debris.

“Yeah I’m not an expert in this kind of thing,” he said gesturing at the machine in front of him “But I don’t think it’s supposed to do that.” he pointed to the debris surrounding the portal.

“How insightful.” Bucky said from where he stood just in front of Steve who balanced his camera on his shoulder, the red light showing it was filming.

“What exactly are we looking at?” Steve said, taking his eye away from the viewer and turning his head slightly as if seeing it from a different angle would help with his understanding of the machine.

“It’s supposed to let the viewer – me – see into one of the other so called planes of existence.” Tony said seriously.

“Of course it does, our bad.” Clint muttered kicking the nearest work bench.

“So you wanted to see a ghost,” Bucky asked smirking slightly.

Tony scowled at him before continuing. “I wanted to see into the spiritual plane, it supposedly lies between the physical plane of existence – our world – and the astral plane which is supposedly an endless void.”

Clint nodded along thoughtfully but Bucky still looked skeptical.

“I don’t understand why though, what do you have to gain by viewing this so called spiritual plane?” Bucky paced around the machine thoughtfully before stopping to study it up close.  
  
He waved his hand through the gap in the middle and when satisfied that nothing bad would happen, stuck his head through after it.

Clint put his hand to his forehead. “What an incredibly thorough safety check, nothing bad can happen if you put your hand through it first!”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” was all Bucky had to say about it.

“You know for a fact that I’m not wearing panties.”

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at Clint. “Oh, I know what you’re not wearing,” he said seriously.

Steve sighed heavily, “Really? Why now? Why not in the privacy of your own home where your oldest friend doesn’t have to hear about it?”

Tony laughed. “I assume this isn’t the first time they’ve done something like this then?”

“Not even close,” Steve said long-sufferingly.

“I bet you’re a tighty whiteys type of guy aren’t you.” Tony looked him up and down before settling his gaze on Steve’s ass. “There’s no way you’re wearing boxers in jeans that tight.”

“Who’s to say I’m not the one wearing panties?” Steve asked teasingly.

“Well I mean you could always show me. That would certainly clear up all this confusion.” Tony murmured, running a finger down Steve’s chest.

Steve grinned wickedly and licked his lips.

“Jesus Christ Steve, you’re not supposed to flirt back!” Bucky shouted from his position inside the tunnel that helped form the portal.

“Oh I’m sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?” Steve asked hotly and Bucky grimaced guiltily.

“We get it, we’ll turn it down a bit until you stop being a miserable bastard and find a boyfriend.” Clint said, he handed Bucky a screwdriver and pointed at the panelling that he wanted removing. He poked his head into the tunnel and talked quietly with Bucky.

Tony looked positively gleeful. “Boyfriend?” he asked sweetly.

“Or girlfriend. Don’t get your hopes up,” Steve replied gruffly before trudging through the debris to get a better shot of the portal.

Bucky poked at the wiring in confusion. “I don’t understand how this works at all.” He stuck his head into the hole he had made in the panelling, waving his arm around until Clint handed him a torch.

Tony wandered around the lab, righting some of the desks and sweeping all of the papers into a big pile whilst mumbling something about how this was why nobody uses paper nowadays.

He was the only one who didn’t jump out of his skin when something began beeping and whirring near the portal. Bucky pulled his head out of the hole in the panelling so fast that the bun on the back of his head got caught in a loose piece of metal.

The whirring had only gotten louder and Bucky quickly scrambled off the machine that had created the entire problem, looking around wildly and frowning when some of the equipment started to wave its arm around from its position on the floor.

“There you are!” Tony exclaimed, vaulting over a desk and approaching the machine. He pulled the sheets of metal off it and pushed the desk that had fallen further away before hauling what appeared to be an arm on wheels upright.

“Everybody meet Dum-E, Dum-E meet everyone.” The arm waved slightly. Clint waved back, grinning.

“I want one.” he said, turning to look into Bucky’s eyes.

“What’s wrong with Lucky?” Bucky asked frowning, for all he complained, he did love that dog, he was as much a part of his family as Clint himself.

“Nothing is stopping us from having both,” Clint pointed out.

“You’re not responsible enough for a robot.” Steve said, “You wouldn’t be able to cope.”

“Too many oil changes.” Bucky agreed gravely nodding along with Steve.

“I’m so glad you both have so much faith in me after all these years.” Clint said, he wandered over to Dum-E, and waved a hand in front of its sensor. Dum-E copied him exactly and Clint grinned at the robot.

“Anyway,” Bucky said drawing everyone’s attention away from Dum-E, “From what we’ve seen Clint and I can only presume that you let something through.”

“Let something through.” Tony said uncomprehendingly.

“Yeah. Like you wanted to see a ghost and now you have one in your tower. It might not even be a ghost but you’ve let some sort of spirit in.” Clint snapped back into business mode, he pulled his backpack off his shoulder and dug around in it for a minute before pulling out a device that was roughly the size of a brick. He flicked a few switches and the LEDs on the front lit up.

“And that is?” Tony asked, leaning over Clint’s shoulder to get a proper look at the device.

“An EDI, it measures changes in temperature, electromagnetic frequencies and movement or vibrations when placed on a flat surface. That’s not turned on at the minute, no point when I’m holding it.” Clint explained.

“Is it heavy?” Tony leaned over and poked it. “I bet I could make you one a quarter of the size.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and looked at Steve who was filming the exchange. He grinned when he met Bucky’s eyes, he had also come to the conclusion that they would definitely be hearing from Tony again, even after they had dealt with his ghost problem.

“Alright then,” Clint shouldered his back pack again, his eyes fixed on the EDI, "If everyone would like to follow me.” he said with a grin, spinning on his heels and walking to the doors.

The lights on the EDI began to flicker and the temperature monitor decreased slightly as they emerged into the corridor, Clint turned left and right trying to decide which way they should be going.

“What temperature is this floor set on?” he asked Tony.

“Seventy degrees as far as I know.” he replied. He waved his arms in the air as if he could tell just by doing that.

“Left it is then,” Clint said setting off walking again. Tony chattered away behind him about random topics, such as the time he convinced the window cleaners to take him with them in their basket as they cleaned the side of the tower.

Bucky did his best to ignore him, Tony’s ramblings wouldn’t help him catch a ghost so what was the point of listening? And Steve seemed more than happy to entertain the resident billionaire.

They followed the curve of the corridor and emerged on an office floor, people looked at them as they tramped their way through the middle of all the cubicles, a few people hastily turned back to their desks as they saw Tony following along with Steve.

Clint stopped for a minute once they had cleared the cubicles before taking a right and leading them further into the building away from the windows. The air started to chill as they continued walking but the device stayed silent.

A steady beeping started as they turned yet another corner, goosebumps raised on Bucky’s arm even through the jacket he was wearing.

“Man, I should have brought a jacket,” Tony muttered as he rubbed his bare arms, his breath clouding in front of his face.

Clint once again swung side to side before flinging open the door to his right and walking through.

“Of course it’s my office, why wouldn’t it be my office?” Tony said throwing his hands up in defeat and striding through the door ahead of Steve and Bucky.

The beeping had turned into one steady sound so Clint flicked off the device. “So I think we’ve found the current location of your fuck up,” he told Tony, zipping up his jacket and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“What the hell would a spirit want from your office” Steve asked, pointing the camera at Tony so that he fully caught the shrug that Tony did.

As he turned back to Bucky the drawers on the filing cabinet closest to the door flew open and invisible hands began to rifle through the paper, throwing it into the air when it couldn’t find what it was looking for. Paper flew everywhere as the spirit moved through all of the draws in the cabinet, it swiftly moved onto the next cabinet once it was finished with the first.

“This is why I fucking hate paper!” Tony cried as he caught some of the paper out of the air “Why can’t we do everything electronically? We wouldn’t be having this problem if we did,” he added venomously.

The wind in the room picked up as the spirit finished its vendetta against Stark Tower’s paper work. It swirled around the edges of the room, picking up stray pieces of paper and created a wind tunnel of contracts. Bucky’s hair whipped around his face as it was ripped free from its ties.

“Clint!” Bucky yelled over the roar of the wind, “See if you can talk to it!”

Clint nodded in understanding after Bucky signed it to him.

He took a deep breath to focus himself. “Hello! I hope you can hear me, my name’s Clint Barton and I just want to ask you a few questions!” he yelled, barely audible to the other inhabitants of the room.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but can you tell us who you are?” he said, eyes darting around the room as the wind began to turn into a white smoke. There wasn’t an answer but the biggest patch of smoke made a groaning sound as if trying to reply.

“What do you want with Tony’s paperwork?” Clint tried again, “What are you looking for?”

“Tony,” was the answer, it was low and drawn out but undoubtedly what the spirit had said.

“Why? What’s Tony to you?!” Clint asked, still yelling as the wind picked up even more.

The picture frames on the wall began to tremble.

“Such a disappointment.” It was said in the same way, it sounded as if the spirit was speaking to them through a pane of glass.

Tony had gone a deathly white, his eyes widened in horror.

Bucky caught Clint’s eye and gestured to where Tony stood trying not to break down and panic.

“I’m sure that’s not true!” Clint yelled back his eyes still on Tony as he started to shake his head. “Look at what he’s doing for green energy! He’s not a disa…”

The spirit materialised out of the smoke and threw Clint back against the wall, he hit it with a resounding thud, only just raising his arms quickly enough to protect his head from all of the framed certificates that came falling down around him.

“Clint!” Bucky yelled, desperate to go over and check if he was alright but also knowing that he had a duty to help Tony.

The smoke figure swooped around the room still, it knocked things from the wall and pushed the filing cabinets over.

“Enough!” Steve yelled as the spirit took a dive towards to Tony.

“Disappointment!” it shrieked as it flew into the computer monitor on the desk, the screen glitched then went dark. It sparked slightly and a trail of black smoke came through a crack in the casing.

The sudden stillness in the room caused all of the papers that had been caught up in the wind to flutter to the ground. The sound of them sliding against each other was the only sound in the room except for the faint ticking of Steve’s watch.

Bucky moved quickly to Clint’s side, giving Steve a glance that clearly told him to check that Tony was alright.

He shoved a filing cabinet aside as he crossed the room, Clint was still hunched up against the wall, his arms above his head. Bucky grabbed one of his hands and pulled it towards him as he knelt down beside Clint.

Clint slowly lowered his other arm, wincing as he rolled his shoulder.

"Did you get hit?" Bucky signed as he looked Clint over for any obvious injuries.

"Just my shoulder," Clint signed back. "At least it wasn’t my head." He grinned slightly at his supposed fortune.

Bucky tutted slightly before leaning forward and wrapping Clint in his arms, holding him as tight as he dared. He rested his cheek on the top of Clint’s head, only feeling marginally better when he felt Clint’s arms winding around his waist.

“You scared me,” he whispered into Clint’s left ear.

“Sorry,” Clint whispered back, he pressed a kiss to Bucky’s clavicle and pulled his head back slightly so that he could look into Bucky’s eyes. “It won’t happen again.”

Bucky laughed knowing that wasn’t true. “See that it doesn’t.” He said anyway.

On the other side of the room Tony was taking the opportunity to pat down Steve, supposedly checking him for injuries. Steve took it all in his stride and let the engineer do it, he was still a funny shade of white from what the spirit had said and his hands shook slightly against Steve’s bicep.

“So that was something, huh?” he said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“It definitely was.” Clint said, levering himself off the floor. He swayed slightly on his feet.

“What the hell did you do to disappoint a ghost?” Steve asked jokingly, he nudged his shoulder against Tony’s and grinned as the engineer swatted at his arm.

“It was probably Howard, he never did think I was a good enough son.” Tony said grimly. He walked towards the computer and hit a few buttons on the keyboard, when it didn’t respond he hit the side of the screen.

“Is it still in there?” Clint asked.

As he spoke the computer whirred to life, a white face flashed across the screen once before disappearing through the wires at the back of the computer. The lights flickered and died and people down the hall started swearing and shouting.

“What the fuck?” someone yelled. “The servers have crashed!”

Tony’s mobile rang in his pocket.

He fished it out and checked the screen. “Damn, that was fast. Hello Pepper,” he said putting the phone to his ear. “I’m gonna put you on speaker, give me a second.”

“What the hell happened?” Pepper said once Tony had turned on the speaker. “All the electricity in the building is down and our servers _in all of our offices_ have gone down as well!”

Tony coughed awkwardly. “Well first things first, don’t worry about the servers, I can get them back up and running in no time.”

Pepper sighed in relief.

“However,” Bucky said, “We should probably get rid of the supposedly pissed off spirit first, it’s somewhere in the building.”

“Fantastic,” Pepper muttered. In her office on the other side of the building she rubbed her hands over her face and sighed heavily.

“I’ll have to do this on paper then.” She said finally. “Do you still have the contracts for Hammer Industries?”

They looked at the papers that littered the floor, Bucky grimaced in sympathy and Clint stifled a laugh.

“Err,” Tony bent over and picked up a random piece of paper, he looked it over before dropping it again. “I’m sure it’s here somewhere, you’ll just have to have a bit of a rummage.”

* * *

 “So that was your dad.” Clint said a short while later. They had retreated into an empty conference room to avoid the chaos in the building.

“Charming fellow isn’t he?” Tony said, sipping his coffee, he swung his feet up onto the table and slouched in his chair. “Do you need me to have a look at that?” He gestured to Steve’s camera.

“No I’m good, that should have been it." Steve said, he poked another set of wires before screwing the panel shut again. The lights on the camera came on almost immediately. “We’re filming again,” he said to Bucky who grunted but didn’t stop in his pacing.

“I don’t understand why it would go for the servers and electricity,” he said at last, coming to a stop behind Clint’s chair and drumming his fingers across the leather back.

“He was very pro-weapons, he’s probably pissed that I shut that down.” Tony said “Everything he did was about the profit, and I didn’t want to make my fortune off murder.”

Bucky nodded along thoughtfully. “So he thinks you’re ruining the company?”

Tony nodded. “Although we’re actually much more popular now than we were when we manufactured weapons.”

“Yeah, but I’m guessing your dad doesn’t have access to that kind of information.” Clint pointed out, he looked more alert now that he had access to a more or less unlimited supply of coffee. He had finished his third already.

“I think the work you’re doing for renewable energy is incredible.” Steve said. “Your dad has nothing to be disappointed about.”

Tony smiled at him gratefully.

They lapsed into silence, and sat around the table looking as if they had been attacked. Clint supposed they had, the spirit definitely hadn’t been friendly.

“Right ok,” Bucky said eventually, slamming his hands down onto the table and pushing himself up. He snapped a hair tie off his wrist and scraped his hair back with practiced ease. “We need to find this ghost and we need to find it now.”

Steve hefted the camera onto his shoulder and got the door, people ran past with armfuls of paper. Pepper had obviously given the order to keep working on whatever projects they could that didn’t need the computers.

“It’s colder this way,” Clint said, squeezing through the doorway Steve stood in. He set off in the direction of the office floor.

“What is he, a psychic or something?” Tony asked Bucky quietly.

Bucky huffed a laugh. “He’s definitely something.” He stared fondly at his boyfriend.

As they rounded the corner to take them back out onto the office floor, they saw some kind of commotion coming from one of the cubicles on the left. People stood loosely in a circle around one of the office workers, she had her hands in her hair and was bent double breathing heavily. Shoving their way through the crowd they realised what was happening.

The whole of the woman’s eyes gleamed red.

Clint stopped in his tracks as he reached the front of the circle, Bucky slammed into his back knocking them both forwards into the circle with the woman.

Her head whipped around to face them, the twisted look on her face clashing with her business casual attire.

A few people screamed as she started to move towards the pair. Bucky ushered them back with his hands, the last thing they needed was civilians getting hurt.

“Err Buck?” Clint asked. “Any thoughts on how to deal with this..” he coughed awkwardly, struggling to find a word “..situation. Yeah, we’ll go with situation.” He nodded slightly, pulling a face that clearly showed he didn’t know how to deal with this situation.

Sensing that they were talking about her, the possessed woman threw herself forward towards them. Bucky moved without thinking, ripping the lid off the water container and chucking it at the woman.

She screamed in anguish as her clothes began to smoke, she fell to the floor and rolled onto her back, her eyes shut tight in pain.

When she looked up again her eyes were clear.

“What the hell was that?” a man yelled from somewhere in the crowd.

A few people stepped forward to help the woman to her feet, her clothes clung to her in an impromptu white t-shirt contest. Clint shrugged out of his hoodie and handed it across for the woman to put on.

Bucky looked at the crowed, they stared back expectantly clearly waiting for an answer. “Holy water.” Bucky said simply. Replacing the lid on the bottle, he shook it to see how much was left. Satisfied with what he heard he stuffed it back into Clint’s backpack.

“She can’t sue me for that can she?” Tony asked as he fought his way to the front of the crowd, Steve in tow. The crowd all took another step back as they spotted him in their midst.

“Hey,” he said stepping towards the woman. “You go home and take it easy ok? Take a few days if you need to.” He smiled reassuringly before gesturing for the others to follow him.

They followed him in silence for a few minutes, processing what they had just seen.

“I think we should head down,” Tony said finally as they walked through an empty corridor.  
“I’ve thought about it and considering all the damage Howard’s done to the servers, he’s probably going to try and fix them. He may not approve of what I’m doing with the company but he wouldn’t want to see it destroyed.”

“That seems logical.” Steve said from the back of the group. He shuffled the camera on his shoulder so that he could see through the viewfinder more easily.

The walk down the stairs was probably the most uneventful thing that had happened all day, their steps echoed loudly in the empty stairwell as they went down another floor.

“Did you say the servers are in the basement?” Clint asked after they started down another set of stairs. The sign on the wall told them they were on the twenty-third floor.

“Yup.” Tony replied.

“Fuck me,” Clint muttered. “Fucking elevators needing electricity. What a design flaw.”

* * *

 The entrance to the server room looked remarkably like the entrance to Tony’s lab fifty-six floors up. The only difference being that the doors to the server room were warped and melted as if they had been pulled apart by an outside force. One of the doors hung lopsided, only one set of hinges still attached.

Bucky and Clint moved towards the door, but Tony stuck his arm out and stopped them from entering.

“I can repair these from whatever electrical fuck up has happened, but if you so much as look at that water container whilst we’re in here I will make sure that you never get on television again, even if you’ve both been arrested for murder. Understood?” he said seriously.

“Understood. No holy water.” Clint said, holding his empty palms up. He pushed past Tony into the server room.

The darkness in the windowless room was exactly what they were expecting, only a few lights still glowed on the server towers but row after row of them stood unpowered in the dark.

“Now I’m not a specialist,” Steve started, “But isn’t it supposed to look like someone has been very heavy-handed with the fairy lights down here?”

Tony chuckled. “Normally it does yes. Daddy dearest took care of that though.”

Steve hummed in agreement.

A scraping sound from the back corner of the room drew their attention. They squinted, trying to see through the darkness.

“The hell was that?” Bucky breathed quietly taking a silent step forward and gesturing for Clint to follow.

Something jumped up and ran when it saw them approaching. The white figure dashed down one of the rows of machines.

They continued cautiously, gesturing for Tony to stay back when they realised what they were looking at.

Pepper lay slumped in front of the main computer terminal. Blood dripped from a cut on her forehead and her jacket was ripped in several places. Clint rushed forward, pressing his fingers against her neck and sighing in relief when he found her pulse.

Another figure lay a few feet away, his uniform showing that he was a member of the security personal who monitored the room. Bucky wandered across to him to see him in a similar state to Pepper, and he quickly rolled him into the recovery position before walking back towards Tony.

“They should be alright but we’re gonna have to leave them there for now.” he said. Tony nodded in understanding.

“I knew my dad was a dick but I didn’t think he’d actually hurt someone. What does he have to gain, unless they tried to stop him? They must have done, he wouldn’t have hurt them otherwise..” He trailed off as he caught sight of something in the rows of servers.

“Yeah, he’s down there.” he said, pointing down one of the rows to where a translucent white man stood. He stared back at Tony with thinly veiled contempt.

“Err, excuse me? Mr Stark?” Steve called. “Could you perhaps take a step back away from the servers please? You’ve done enough damage, don’t you think?”

Howard Stark’s ghost looked at him curiously but he did take a step back. Still staring at Steve, he cocked his head to the side slightly as if facing a difficult puzzle or looking at someone and thinking that they recognise them from somewhere.

For a moment he looked as if he was about to run.

Bucky walked into Steve’s line of sight, he signalled at him to keep Howard distracted.

Clint pulled a Ziploc bag of salt out of his backpack and emptied some into Bucky’s hand. Working from behind Howard they began making a line of salt around the spirit. Howard screamed in outrage once he realised what was happening.

Glass shattered on the casing for the servers and light bulbs smashed above their heads, sparks coming from the uncovered wires.

“Jesus fuck!” Bucky yelled, covering his ears with his hands. Looking around Clint realised that Tony and Steve where in a similar position, both were desperately trying to protect their ears.

Thankful for once for the ability to turn his hearing off, Clint quickly finished the circle of salt that he and Bucky had created to trap Howard.

The screaming stopped abruptly as the circle was completed.

Clint flicked his hearing aids back on and rubbed his ears, considering it had hurt him he could only imagine what it must have been like for the others.

He stared at the spirit trapped in the circle. Howard Stark paced backwards and forwards irritably. He was becoming more corporeal by the minute, Clint could no longer see through him, and he seemed to be gaining some colour to his features.

“Tony,” Clint said, turning to face the engineer, “You’re gonna have to be the one to talk to him.”

Tony looked absolutely horrified at the thought, “Do I have to?” he asked, looking at his father uncertainly.

“Sorry buddy,” Clint said, grabbing Tony by the shoulders and forcing him forward. Howard’s attention immediately settled on his son.

“I don’t even know what to say!” Tony looked over his shoulder at Clint, the look of uncertainty set him apart from the man the public was used to seeing. Clint smiled at him reassuringly.

“Just ask him what he wants and what it would take for him to cross over again.” Clint suggested sounding more certain than he was. Tony nodded and turned back to his ‘father’.

“Hey dad,” he started, his voice shaking slightly. “How’ve you been? It’s good to see you again.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Howard said, his voice cold. He glared at his son from inside his salt prison.

“Right, no, fair enough. It’s definitely a lie, I could have gone my whole life without seeing you again.” Tony said, sounding more confident at the realisation that his father was acting exactly the same as before he died.

“Why are you here?” he asked finally, staring at his father darkly. “You clearly aren’t welcome and you’ve already damaged my servers, possessed a member of my staff and attacked the best thing that has ever happened to this company.”

Howard sneered at the mention of Pepper. “She wouldn’t let me through,” he said as if it justified his actions. “And what was on those servers wasn’t worth keeping!” Howard yelled angrily.

“What was on there would save the planet!” Tony yelled back. “The technology that I had created could single-handedly end our search for waste free renewable power!”

Howard took a step back.

“Yeah, just because I’ve stopped making weapons doesn’t mean I’m not helping in a different way! Our latest communication devices have been installed in all major emergency responder vehicles and sent out to the armed forces.”

Bucky exchanged a glance with Clint, clearly Tony was planning to talk to the press soon because nobody had heard about his latest gifts to the public services and armed forces.

“As for Pepper, she’s been a much better impact on the company than you ever were! Stark Industries have the highest popularity rate than they ever had before, we’re the leading company in communications and the only company in the world with Arc Reactor technology!” Tony yelled. “There’s more that I can do to improve this company that you loved so much more than me!”

“I didn’t realise the company was excelling in other ways than what I had intended.” Howard said, taking another step back.

“Mr. Stark,” Bucky said. “I hate to be rude, but if you’re only here to bitch about how good a job your son is doing, I don’t suppose you’d mind moving on?”

Howard shot him a dirty look.  
  
 Bucky crossed his arms, unimpressed.  
  
“Why should I have to leave? The building has my name on the side.”

“We can force you if you don’t go,” Clint inputted helpfully.

Howard took a deep breath, a bit pointless considering he was dead.

“Besides, it's Tony’s name now, not yours,” Steve said coldly.

“I’ll go.” He held his hands up in surrender. “Just promise me you’ll do what’s best for the company,” he said, pointing a finger at Tony.

“What I think is best for the company, or what you think is best for the company? Because those are two very different things. And you’re dead so your opinion doesn’t really matter.”

Steve nodded in agreement.

“Do what you think needs to be done.” Howard said as he began to fade, “And I don’t really think you’re a disappointment, you just have such a unique style. It was hard to follow sometimes, I hope you know that.”

He faded entirely, a faint breeze carrying the scent of whiskey and old cigars.

“Eughh,” Tony said, pulling a face. “Smells just like his study used to.”

“You know, that was awfully anticlimactic. I was hoping for a bit more drama.” Clint said as he threw Bucky’s arm off from where it rested across his shoulders. “Do you have a brush?” He gestured at the piles of salt.

* * *

 It didn’t take long for the news to spread that Tony Stark had let a spirit into his building. News vans gathered on the street outside, their presenters standing on the steps leading up to the tower, and various networks spreading bullshit as if it was going out of fashion.

“God they’re nosy buggers,” Tony said, staring out the window onto the street below. “I pity you guys, at least I don’t have to try and drive through that.”

“Ah crap.” Bucky said. “I can see our car. It’s parked right between CNN and FOX.”

“We can get through that,” Clint said doubtfully, joining Bucky at the window.

“Maybe you guys should leave it a bit.” Tony suggested. “They had a hell of a time trying to get the ambulances through for Pepper and that security guard. Who I will find out the name of and send a get well soon card to.”

Steve looked at him thoughtfully.

“I told you he wasn’t a dick,” Bucky said to Clint, poking him in the ribs.

Tony gasped in shock. “You know I’m shocked, I truly am. I wouldn’t have thought you would judge a book by its cover, but here we are. I take it back, you can’t drop by and see me whenever you want now, Mondays and Thursdays only.”

“To be fair though, you do seem like a dick to people who haven’t met you.” Steve said.

“Thank you.” Clint said gratefully. “It’s the thinking you’re smarter than everyone else thing. It makes you come across as condescending.”

“Yeah I understand that.” Tony agreed, stroking his goatee. “I can’t help it if news reporters don’t have any brain cells to rub together.”

Bucky and Clint nodded in agreement, Steve – who had never had to deal with press – opened his mouth to argue.

“Don’t fight with us on this one Steve.” Bucky said, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. “When you aren’t a press virgin, then you can have an opinion on the intelligence of reporters.”

Clint laughed again taking Bucky’s hand in his and squeezing it.

“Come on Buck, we need to get going, we need a new phone and the dog needs letting out. God knows what he’ll have done to the apartment by now.” Clint squeezed Bucky’s hand again and pulled him lightly towards the door.

“Thank you.” Tony said. “You guys have been a huge help. And, I hope you got some good stuff for the show.” He nodded at Steve.

Steve patted his camera with a grin, and Tony grinned back.

Bucky raised an eyebrow and elbowed Clint, who smirked knowingly.

“You coming Steve, or are you on your bike?” Clint asked.

“I’m gonna chill for a bit until I can get my bike out of the garage.” Steve replied. “If I get her out now, she’ll only get scratched by the crowds.”

“She?” Tony said teasingly. “Don’t tell me she has a name.”

Steve flushed red and Tony laughed joyfully.

“Right ok, we’ll see you tomorrow?” Bucky asked Steve who nodded in response. “And we’ll see you next week,” he said to Tony who flashed him a thumbs up.

“Bye guys!” Clint called over his shoulder as he tugged Bucky out of the room.

“They’re totally gonna do it,” Clint said as they walked down the steps at the front of the building.  Cameras flashed in their direction and a couple of reporters shouted their names, clearly familiar with the programme. They expertly ducked microphones and stayed impassive as the cameras turned to face them. Chances were they’d be all over the papers tomorrow for helping the famous Tony Stark. Bucky didn’t envy him one bit, he couldn’t live with all the attention that Tony got.

“Oh yeah,” Bucky agreed. “They’re definitely gonna do it.” He pecked a kiss onto Clint’s cheek and got into the car, shutting the door on all the chaos outside.

He waited until Clint was in the car with his door shut before continuing. “The question isn’t about whether they will, that’s more or less a given. It’s about _when_ they will.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the wonderful Sian1359 for their beautiful art work!
> 
> Thanks for reading, it's been really good fun taking part in the Big Bang!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art: So You Think You Have Ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7959196) by [sian1359](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359)




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